Activision Drops CoD Subscription Hints, Again News

As part of the publisher's end of year financial report, Activision has dropped a raft of hints surrounding a supposed subscription based payment model for future instalments in the Call of Duty franchise.

"In addition to downloadable content, we expect to explore, analyse and pursue opportunities to expand the brand into new geographies, genres and business models. We look forward to sharing more details with you regarding our plans in the coming months," said Activision CEO and President, Michael Griffith in a post-report conference call.

"If you think about the success that we've had in other product categories on subscription you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that [Call of Duty] franchise," Activision Blizzard's big cheese, Bobby Kotick added later.

This follows a questionnaire that surfaced last June, which first put forward the idea of an MMO-style subscription service for CoD. This was then enlarged upon by comments that Kotick made last November.

Activision also projected lower sales expectations for this year's instalment of the CoD series, which is in development at Treyarch and is strongly rumoured to be based on the Vietnam War.

"We expect to have a more difficult competitive environment this year and therefore, we have not planned on repeating the same level of success as we enjoyed in 2009," Griffith stated. "That said, we are still bullish on this year's title and we do see upside potential if we execute well by engaging the much larger set of consumers, who were introduced to the Call of Duty franchise in 2009."

Thanks, Seeking Alpha.